Dedication, drive carry Estes to St. Joseph's University

Some high school seniors who are
destined to compete in collegiate athletics have spent more than half
their young lives playing the particular sport that they excel in.

Oxford Area High School senior Elaine
Estes, by contrast, worked hard enough at becoming a skilled
cross-country runner that she started attracting the attention of
colleges in less than two years. She started running in the summer
before her sophomore year, and this time next year she will be
competing in cross country for St. Joseph’s University.

“As an athlete, Elaine drove herself
to be the best,” said Duffy Sample, her coach. “I had the
opportunity to watch Elaine begin her career as an average runner
and, by her senior year, develop into a state qualifier. [She is]
never satisfied with her times. Elaine became a student of cross
country. She bought books about the sport, asked for workouts that
extended her training, and disciplined herself to come to school at 6
a.m. for an extra workout. I never had an athlete with as much
dedication and drive as Elaine.”

“Mr. Sample calls me the bulldog,”
Estes explained with a laugh.

As a youngster, Estes tried various
sports—softball, soccer, basketball—but gravitated toward
individual sports. She was a dancer for a long time. Several of her
friends ran cross country for Oxford, so she decided to give it a
try. She would run a 5K course in about 28 minutes in the beginning,
hardly an indication that she would soon be a state qualifier.

“Nothing too great happened that
first year,” Estes explained.

She made good progress during her
junior year, consistently improving her times, but her season ended
early when she suffered a contusion on the outside of her foot just a
week before districts. She spent the next six weeks with her foot in
a boot, but quickly rebounded from the injury.

“I worked really hard in the summer,
practicing six days a week,” she explained.

The Oxford cross country team enjoyed
good success during Estes’ time with the team. During the Steel
City Invitational, for example, Oxford took the top spot with Estes
finishing in second place.

Oxford also won the Maryland Track and
Trail event, with Estes delivering a top-ten performance.

She said that the team is helped by a
challenging home course that prepares the squad for some of the other
difficult courses.

“Our course is one of the more hilly
ones,” Estes explained. “And we do hill workouts pretty
frequently.”

By the time her senior season rolled
around, Estes was turning in better times against stronger
competition. She routinely finished her competitions in under 20
minutes. In one event, she won by one-one-hundredth of a second over
Jamie Zamrin of Cocalico High School. The stronger competition helped
push Estes. At the Carlisle Puma Challenge, she placed 13th against
much stronger statewide competition.

“You had more people around you,
people pushing you from all sides,” Estes explained. “I
definitely wouldn’t have finished with that time if I wasn’t
pushed.”

She set her personal best record at the
district race at Lehigh University, turning in a time of 19:05, which
allowed her to qualify for states. It was a remarkable feat
considering that she didn’t even run cross country three years ago.
She was named the MVP of the Oxford girls’ cross country squad and
was selected to the First Team All-Ches-Mont League squad for her
senior season.

Estes’ applies the same work ethic to
the classroom. She has a weighted grade-point average of 4.42. She
has been a member of FBLA and has qualified for state competitions
for all four years. She is also a member of the Spanish Honor Society
and chorus.

“As a student, I believe Elaine’s
classes and grades speak for themselves,” Sample said. “She is a
hard worker who is driven to do better than her best. Elaine has
excelled in the classroom throughout her high school career and has
the desire to continue along those lines in college.”

Estes said that Elizabethtown College,
Millersville University, and St. Joseph’s University were all under
consideration as possible destinations. She liked all three, but
ultimately decided that she wanted to compete at the Division I
level. Her visit to St. Joseph’s was canceled four times because of
the weather, but when she finally made the visit she felt right at
home with the coach and the other girls on the team. She is looking
forward to the challenge.

Before she goes to St. Joseph’s,
however, Estes is going to be reporting for Basic Training for the
National Guard. She enlisted as a junior, and already has a year of
experience. She will be a Financial Management Specialist in Fort
Indiantown Gap, and will then start at St. Joseph’s University in
the spring of 2016.

Estes wants to major in education and
become a Spanish teacher or ESL teacher. She definitely wants to
coach track or cross country, in part because of the excellent
coaching that she has received. She said that Sample has been an
inspiration for her.

“He does a lot for us,” she
explained. “He always tells us that we can do anything that we set
our minds to.”

Despite the fact that Estes is a top
athlete and an exemplary student, her work in sports and in the
classroom might be overshadowed by her willingness to put the needs
of others before her own needs.

Sample explained, “I feel Elaine’s
most important attribute is her heart for others. She is a very
caring young lady who always is looking to help those others have
ignored. I witnessed, on more than one occasion, Elaine’s desire to
make sure certain individuals were included in group, community, and
individual activities that they would most likely have been excluded
from if Elaine was not proactive. She definitely has a heart for the
less fortunate, an attribute most high school students today do not
have.”

Oxford Area High School athletic
director Michael Price agreed with Sample's assessment.

“Elaine
has been a model student-athlete for the students of Oxford Area High
School,” Price said. “She has been a contributing member in the
community, and she's involved in so many groups and organizations. I
am very happy for her and proud of her. She deserves everything
because she really does work so hard.”